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MWC 2011 - HP's new webOS Family

HP has done some quick work after barely a year of its acquisition of Palm and the webOS platform, having officially shown not one, but three new webOS HP devices. No doubt, the old-new OS faces some strong competition from popular operating systems like Apple iOS and Android, both of which have built their successes around a strong portfolio of handphones and a viable, growing ecosystem. This means that HP must at least not only match or outdo its competitors in technical specs at launch but also come with an OS that at least provides a different and yet, intuitive user experience. On this account, we say that we stand pretty impressed in both aspects after checking out the products at the booth.

Unfortunately, out of the three, we were only allowed to touch and handle the Veer, but suffice to say, the demonstration showed us some nifty tricks that the webOS have up its sleeves (watch out for our videos). We were most impressed with the 9.7-inch HP TouchPad, from what we noticed allowed for brisk and fast navigation, no surprises here since it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU 1.2GHz processor. The interface is very simple and bare in design with an emphasis on synergy and one-stop access. Take for example, the Photo application keeps all relevant photos from related accounts (from Facebook Snapfish, and Photobucket) in one place, even allowing you to easily print, share and even see Facebook comments on it without even having to move out from the app. The search function also allows you to search through everything, from contacts, to photos and apps - making it extremely easy to find what you want.

Availability for Asia Pacific has not been announced officially yet, but a spokesperson mentioned that both the Touchpad and the Pre3 will be tentatively launched in summer of this year with the Veer slightly earlier in spring in the US.